(1)
Alice,
My wife never liked sex when she was younger even though she had about
a dozen partners. When she met me all that changed and she loved making
love every night for about a year. Her sex drive then began to lessen until
she finally does not like it at all. She believes it is a physical act that
she can do without, whereas I believe it is the ultimate form of intimacy.
Do you have any suggestions for her to revitalize her sex drive since right
now we are not making love at all?
(2)
Dear Alice,
I've been with my girlfriend for almost 5 yrs. and love her dearly. The
difficulty I'm having is she is not very imaginative about our sexual interactions.
Although I don't mind adding the spontaneity and variety, I eventually feel
pressure to be the one to do it all the time. After a while I get frustrated
because it seems like she is never willing to take the risk of giving our
intercourse some sparkle. It seems that she prefers a very predictable pattern
of foreplay and intercourse that I've come to find less than arousing (unless
I haven't seen her for a long time). I've also tried repeatedly to talk
with her about it but she is not very responsive to me on this issue.
Thanks,
"Being as Patient as I can"
Dear Reader #1 and "Being as Patient as I can,"
Alice has suggestions for how you can learn to deal with your partner's
"problem." For her, it doesn't seem like there's a problem.
For you, on the other hand, your partner's disinterest in, or lack of enthusiasm
for, sex is a big dilemma. Perhaps, if you learn to take care of your own
needs, other things will take care of themselves (or you will cease to view
them as problematic).
The first thing to do is to back off and give your partner some room.
Constantly harping on the subject probably turns her off even more. What
are you doing now that you could do differently? Might a different approach
produce different results?
Do you have other outlets for releasing your sexual energy? Does masturbating
help you at all? There are many people, men and women, who masturbate daily
or weekly regardless of whether or not they have partner sex regularly,
or at all.
The main point Alice wants to make is that this is the way your partner
is. She may or may not change; and, you cannot force her to. With that
in mind, the best strategy is to make changes yourself that will help you
live with this situation.
It might help to think of this as one of the ways your partner can be,
and that she may not stay like this forever. You were able to live with
her in her "sexual" phase. The challenge now is to learn to live
with and love her in her "asexual" mode, and to take care of yourself
until she becomes sexual again. Are there other ways you and your partner
can be close and intimate without sex? It might be fun to explore that
side of your relationship, too. While sex is the ultimate form of intimacy
for you, do you know what your partner considers to be the ultimate form
of intimacy? And, who knows what better meeting her needs might lead to?
For more information, read Lonnie G. Barbach's book, For Each Other:
Sharing Sexual Intimacy. In the book, real couples describe their
own creative solutions to their own sexual roadblocks.
- Alice
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Lack of, and lackluster, lovemaking
